**6.1 Heritability**

*Goats (Capra) - From Ancient to Modern*

**S N Reproductive traits Khari ×** 

4 No of kids/doe/

5 No of kids weaned per doe per annum

6 Live weight gain per doe per annum (kg)

*Source: [28, 33].*

**Table 11.**

annum

*Some reproductive parameters of crossbred goats in Nepal.*

*Source: [32].*

**Table 10.**

**Age Male Female Overall**

Birth 2.92 ± 0.66 2.44 ± 0.83 2.68 Weaning (4 months) 16.37 ± 3.5 109.5 14.96 ± 1.95 102.25 15.66 Postweaning (8 months) 29.48 ± 1.32 109.37 25.32 ± 1.46 94.29 27.40 Yearling (12 months) 42.32 ± 1.49 107.09 38.87 ± 1.29 99.12 40.59

*Growth performance of 50% Boer kids from birth to yearling age at Multiplier Herd, GRS, Bandipur.*

**Jamnapari**

1 Age at first kidding (d) 577 564 576 423 2 Kidding interval (d) 319 286 496 257 3 Twinning percentage 45.50 58.33 33.00 91

**ADWG (g)**

> **Khari × Barbari**

1.28 1.60 1.14

19.14 16.15 18.37

*Crossbred goats at Goat Research Station, Bandipur (photo courtesy: Goat Research Station, Bandipur, Nepal).*

**Khari × Kiko**

1.79 2.09 2.6 2.55

**Weight (kg) ADWG** 

**(g)**

**Khari × Sannen**

**weight (kg)**

**Khari × Boer**

**Weight (kg)**

**70**

**Figure 3.**

Limited research has been carried out to estimate the genetic parameters of goat flocks in Nepal. Findings indicate that most of the desirable economic traits of goats in Nepal are moderately to highly heritable (see **Table 12**). Moderate to high heritability of the weight traits of *Khari* goat kids [17] indicated a relatively large contribution of additive genetic variance and potentiality for improving body weight in goats by selection. Similarly, increasing heritability of body weights of kids at the later stages of growth indicated that environmental factors have more influence on birth weight than on the weights achieved on the later stage of growth.

### **6.2 Genetic and phenotypic correlation**

Past studies have revealed the genetic correlation among the weight traits at different stages of growth of *Khari* goat kids ranging from 0.61 to 0.96 (see **Table 13**). The high and positive genetic correlations of weaning weight at 6, 9, and 12 months of *Khari* goat kids indicate that they are all being controlled by similar genes, and thus selection for any one of these traits would lead to positive changes in the other [35, 36].


### **Table 12.** *Heritability estimates for different traits of hill goat.*


*\* Significant at 5% level (i.e., p < 0.05).*

*\*\*Significant at 1% level (i.e., p < 0.01).*

*\*\*\*Significant at 0.1% level (i.e., p < 0.001).*

*Source: [17].*

### **Table 13.**

*Genetic correlation (above diagonal) and phenotypic correlation (below the diagonal) between the weight traits of* Khari *goat kids at different stages of growth in Nawalparasi, Nepal.*

Similarly, phenotypic correlation among the weight traits at different stages of growth of *Khari* goat kids ranged from 0.56 to 0.94 (see **Table 13**). Strong positive association among the weight traits of kids at all stages of growth indicates that selection for increased weight at earlier age will result in increased weight of kids at later stage of growth as reported by earlier studies [37].
